


we keep the scars we're born with.

by Fruityloo



Series: shallow, gnarled roots [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 20:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10998846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fruityloo/pseuds/Fruityloo
Summary: The cafe Sanders brings Napoleon to is situated by a river, running water babbling and bouncing off the tiled floor like a message: We know your weaknesses, vampire. Best you know your place. Napoleon wouldn't share the fact that running water only gave him goosebumps, providing he was well fed. (He was always well fed, not a man to deny his needs, not even a man who denies his wants.) Napoleon glances around the table, cataloguing Sanders' measured sips of coffee, the kind of swallows Napoleon might take to disguise his wandering eyes. Sanders wouldn't make a very good spy. But he didn't need to. That's why Napoleon was here."You've given me a babysitter," he says, a half-accusation that he does little to disguise. "I offer you the perfect spy, and you assign him a babysitter. He's Russian.""Mr. Solo, you are a con, not a spy. You're not even human."(originally a one-shot, can still be read as such!)





	we keep the scars we're born with.

**Author's Note:**

> If you expect a cohesive narrative, turn back now and save yourself..... I just really like vampires.........

The cafe Sanders brings Napoleon to is situated by a river, running water babbling and bouncing off the tiled floor like a message: We know your weaknesses, vampire. Best you know your place. Napoleon wouldn't share the fact that running water only gave him goosebumps, providing he was well fed. (He was always well fed, not a man to deny his needs, not even a man who denies his wants.) Napoleon glances around the table, cataloguing Sanders' measured sips of coffee, the kind of swallows Napoleon might take to disguise his wandering eyes. Sanders wouldn't make a very good spy. But he didn't need to. That's why Napoleon was here. 

"You've given me a babysitter," he says, a half-accusation that he does little to disguise. "I offer you the perfect spy, and you assign him a babysitter. He's Russian."

"Mr. Solo, you are a con, not a spy. You're not even human."

Con men and spies are the same breed working under different banners. Napoleon doesn’t say this. He doubts either man at the table will agree. "You don't trust me," it's not an accusation. Napoleon never expected trust, or even wanted it. But he did not expect the American government, champions of deliberate short-sightedness and blindness, who give Nazi scientists cozy suburb homes and a personal guard, to look a gift-horse in the mouth. "You trust me less than the Russians. I'm flattered."

Sanders sets down his coffee cup, "Given the... uniqueness of your skillset, we thought it pertinent to find a partner familiar with the challenges you might pose. Outside government lines."

The half-stranger sits up straighter.

"No, I did my homework, thank you. Illya Kuryakin is a KGB-bred piece of work. If I did not know better I would call him inhuman."

"KGB, yes, would be foolish to deny this," Illya says, hands folding on the table, white-knuckled, "Formerly, vampire hunter. Are very few spies with my skillset. No other spies with my background," he smiles, thin and bloodless. Napoleon might have commented on his utter lack of nuance, but he is still tripping over Illya's admission.

Formerly, vampire hunter.

Intriguing.

Napoleon looks at Illya with a different set of eyes, not a spy or con man but a vampire. Much of his skin is covered -- typical hunter, paranoid about bare skin, as if vampires could tear through flesh with bare teeth but not wool and cotton. But for a vampire hunter, few of his scars were vampire-made.

(Former hunter, but Napoleon knows better than to believe this. No hunter truly left the profession. Like being incapable of un-seeing the solution to an optical illusion once you found it. You could not un-know how to kill a vampire)

Vampire claws possessed a certain curve, and when healed, the scars left behind were like long crescents. Napoleon knows this from experience. Bites were even easier to distinguish, twin scars raised and white, often near pulsepoint. Bites always healed this way. Napoleon knows this from experience, too.

Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, defensive wounds make a map of Illya’s skin, all fine-edged cuts. A scar in the crook of his elbow came from a bowie knife; the line encircling his wrist had edges that blurred into skin, a violet shade unique to chafing rope. A respectable spy would take better care to avoid such scarring.

Napoleon catalogued each one and stored it for later examination. He was an expert in reading the human body, its subtle shifts of posture more honest than words. But he read it in other ways, too, and scars were a perfect history book, unbiased.

He knows this: we keep the scars we’re born with. Scars a vampire wore told histories more thorough than most. Some vampires possessed the pockmarked skin of disease, others the sickly waist of famine. Too many vampires walk on limbs thinner than what’s healthy, bodies trapped in the state of their turning. Hunger made one desperate, vampire or no, and humans would do anything for survival. Napoleon knows this best of all. He wore bruises on his chest, below clavicle, above pulsepoint; accessories left behind by the pieces of himself he sold for food. They made cover stories annoying to pull together, barring he posed as an expensive whore. But that was a little on the money, wasn’t it?

They say acting is about telling the truth. Napoleon is a good spy. Lousy vampire, but a good spy, and he always told the truth.

"I hear they take hunter-boys from their parents. Is that true?"

Illya follows his gaze to forearm and his face is a perfect mask. It’s the mask that gives him away, too carefully constructed, too intentional. Anger hid in the bloodless line of his lips, regret in the trapped flex of tendon, the way his arm almost slips off the table. Not a very good actor.

“This is true.”

Napoleon hums. “Seems we have something in common, then.”

It’s so out of place that Illya’s mask drops into a furrowed brow. Napoleon offers no explanation.

 

* * *

 

 

Italy again. It feels too soon since their last visit, the city too peaceful, people too welcoming. Illya spends his time in the company of spies and government men, their greetings always sharp knives with velvet handles, and they spoke truths only between the lines.

The speaker set up beside him crackles, not words but the muddled song of singing crickets, echoed back just outside their hotel window. The cacophony and summer heat make it difficult to focus on the chessboard in front of him. He's held the same black rook between forefinger and thumb for the past twenty minutes, toying with moves but not committing. A breeze carries something cloyingly floral into the room, but does little to stir the air.

Footfalls on tile direct his attention upward, Napoleon's steps so quiet that another man might have missed them. Illya missed little. He does not miss the startled look in Napoleon's eye, though elects not to comment on it. "Napoleon."

“I didn’t expect you to be awake,” Napoleon says as he passes his chair to the other side of the room. Yet there’s no surprise in his voice, not even feigned surprise. Just tired. The cabinet creaks open and Illya fixes his eyes on the chessboard in front of him, twisting black rook between forefinger and thumb once more.

“I didn’t know vampires slept,” he places the rook, takes white knight and spins the board. “One of us has to monitor the radio.” A notebook lay beside his board, last entry nearly three hours ago.

“All’s quiet on the espionage front,” glass clinks behind him and somewhere to his left as Napoleon pours himself a drink. Illya doubted vampires even could get drunk, but Napoleon seemed the kind of man who might pretend regardless.

Napoleon sits down across from him, glass filled with ice and something brown. Bourbon, probably. He’s suitless in a white cotton undershirt. There’s no reason this should surprise him, and yet he seems a different man without the finery to hide behind, smaller and more human.

“We can, by the way.”

“Can what?” he shifts a pawn without much considering the move and spins his board again.

“Sleep.”

Illya grunts in response and turns focus back to his game, ear on the radio. Napoleon is utterly still across from him, moving only to refill his glass. Otherwise he stared, eyes locked on the board but never moving when Illya shifts a piece. Seeing, but not watching. The room is muggy with Italian summer air. It condenses on Napoleon’s glass and Illya’s brow. He pretends it is the air that makes Napoleon’s shirt cling to him, but he wears the far-away stare of a man trapped in his head.

“You look like hell.”

“Charmer.”

Radio static hovers around them, air so thick he could grab it with bare hands. Napoleon drops his head back and stares at the ceiling, muscles past relaxed and into something deeper, almost concerning in its deliberate carelessness. His clavicle glints purple-blue highlighted with sweat, marks as far down his chest as the white cotton allows him to see.

Where did he even find the time?

“Those bruises,” he looks emphatically to where Napoleon’s nightshirt has slipped down and to the side, displaying purple clavicle. It did not take a genius to recognize hickies, but Illya would remain professional even where Napoleon did not. To his credit, Napoleon’s body goes absolutely stiff, the relaxed curve of his neck freezing into something tight and square.

“See something interesting?” It’s a challenge, though Illya cannot fathom why.

“Not interested that way. Curiosity.” Napoleon’s body eases again, falling into the guarded ease Napoleon always carries himself with, comfortable but coiled to strike. Illya knows this language well, though only from the outside. Napoleon uses it with marks, never towards him. It’s strange. Disconcerting. Illya feels he’s pressed somewhere he was not meant to press, as though his observations are like blunt thumbs into tender skin. “Those bruises, they do not fade like the others. Why?”

Napoleon continues staring at the ceiling, silence tightening around them. “Call them battle scars,” Napoleon’s voice is sing-song and lecherous in a way that clashes against the cry of crickets.

 _Lie._ What fool spy lied to another spy? But this was not a conversation between spies, Illya realizes with a frown. It’s been a long time since anyone spoke to him as a man and not a chess game’s pawn.

“I’m going to bed.” Illya stands, ignores the way Napoleon flinches. Whatever demons he had in dreams, Illya wasn’t one of them.

“G’night, Peril,” there’s a slur to his voice, something lilting but too convenient. Not drunk, but desperately wishing to be.

“Goodnight, Cowboy.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Your _indiscretions_ are a danger to the operation.”

Napoleon focuses on adjusting his cufflinks and does not look up. Still, when he speaks, he’s smiling his charlatan’s smile. “I’ll only be a few hours. How much damage can I do in an hour?”

“It only takes one slip to blow a cover.”

He’s got a point. Still, “Starving myself would be even more dangerous, you know. Glowing red eyes are a touch hard to miss.” Illya may be acting as a spy, not a hunter, but surely he knew this.

“How American.”

Napoleon laughs, shaping confusion into mocking, “We’re not all Americans. That’s preposterous.” The first vampires Napoleon knew were french aristocrats. His sire brought him to the new world, but that didn’t make him American. An opportunist. The colonies had little in the way of oversight; tired militia, judges who spent their sundays as priests. It’s here Napoleon learned to con rich slavers from their purses and then their blood. A poor man’s skill, he took their clothes and sought harder prey, richer prey, people who deserved it. Hardly American.

“You are all _capitalists_.”

He crosses his arms, “Reasoning?”

“Steal from poor so you can live, destroy their little lives because you are far more _worthy_ of life. Is this not how capitalism works? Someone always gets short end of the stick.”

“I don’t prey on the poor.” They don’t deserve it

“This is true. Only vampires who don’t want to be caught hunt the poor. You prey on American elite and draw attention to yourself. Your vanity is why I’m here.”

 _Wrong!_ It catches in his throat, hardens the line of his jaw, _I was one of them_. He says nothing. It’s not a tale for any hunter to know.

“I’m leaving.” He might spend more time in the mirror, fixing cufflinks and slicking hair, but the ritual of it all lost its pleasure tonight.

“You’re staying.”

Napoleon doesn’t even turn around.  “Why, Peril, I have some capitalism to do. If I stay I’ll be late for my appointment with that nice young heiress from this morning.”

“A gift is different.”

Against his better judgement, Napoleon drops his hand from the doorknob and turns, shoulders a sinuous curved line, posture open and face schooled into a mask of passing curiosity to hide the gears spinning to make sense of this. “A gift.” It should be a question. It’s not.

“Don’t play at oblivious. It doesn’t suit you.”

He sighs, and the feigned confusion rushes from his lips. In its place Napoleon forces something sharp, icicles formed to whisper-fine points. “I know stupidity suits you, but this seems reckless even for you, doesn’t it?”

Take it back.

“I’m being pragmatic,” offered like an explanation, a taunt. _Unlike you._ Napoleon hears only excuse.

“You mean you’re making an unnecessary risk.” He doesn’t like how much the sharpness feels like an act. Lying, all about telling the truth. He’s vulnerable.

Illya barks a laugh, “Not a risk. I can throw you halfway across this room.” Like he thinks that’s the problem. Like Napoleon doesn’t know Illya’s killed vampires before.

He tilts his head, and spends no effort making the movements appear human. There’s grace, but sharpness, followed by a stillness that speaks of predator. _Have you forgotten what I am_.

“Out of… curiosity. Tell me, have you been bitten by a vampire before?” Napoleon knows the answer. Hopes he does, or he’d have to drastically re-assess his opinion of Illya.

Illya hardly spares a blink at Napoleon’s shift in movement. His eyes jerk left, following, cataloging, determining if the gesture implied danger. “They don’t get close enough.”

 _Thought so._ Napoleon shapes the flood of relief into disappointment, an emotion Illya wouldn’t question. His sigh becomes a huff, and the flash of irritation in Illya’s eyes shows he believes the lie.

Illya wouldn’t offer if he knew the truth of it.

“Like I said. I’m leaving.” Napoleon turns.

Half a second later, his skull meets the door. Air pushes from his lungs in a cough. Balance thrown, ears ringing. “There a reason you’ve just attacked me, Peril?”

“I’m trying to stop you from making stupid decisions.”

Napoleon shoves, and to his credit Illya only stumbles.

“Funny, I’m trying to do the same.”

Another lunge. Illya’s body is a single flat plane, fists clasped and straining against the self-imposed leash. “You think I want your fangs anywhere _near_ -”

This was getting ridiculous.

“Fine,” Napoleon doesn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence. He advances, undoing the buttons of his suit jacket and loosening tie. Illya wanted to push this? Fine. He would learn what a vampire’s bit felt like. He would know the sensation of venom crawling through his veins, dumbing his thoughts, making him pliant, the things Napoleon woke up sweating for.

He drapes his jacket over a chair and continues his advance. The blade of his expression wasn’t an act this time, and Illya knew it. Napoleon watched him shudder, anticipatory, left leg shaking and right leg tensed. Trying not to back away. So concerned with not appearing weak. Stupid Russian. Foolish, stubborn man.

“Take off your shirt,” he says casually. The knife of his expression is held between his teeth, glinting with his words.

“I said _gift_. Don’t order me like I’m one of your marks.”

He rolls his eyes. So easily offended. “If you want a mess, be my guest. Remember that suit you’re wearing is on the UNCLE’s pocket. We bloody enough clothes as it is, don’t you think?”

Illya lets out a long breath through his nose, eyes shutting. The air around them is positively tropical, salty-hot, briny in a way that stung. The sea waves crashing into him spoke only of blood and impending storm.

Napoleon rounds the couch and sits. “Let’s do this properly, then.” He gestures to the empty cushion beside him.

To his surprise, Illya sits. He leaves as much space between them as the couch reasonably allowed, but he sat. He breathes through his nose and out through the mouth, a steady ten count. His lips mouthed numbers on each inhale,

 _Desiat’._ His fists unclench.

 _Deviat’._ His jaw slackens.

 _Vosem’._ Napoleon’s breath catches.

He says nothing, watches until the last number drops and Illya’s eyes open. And he doesn’t comment, even though the sarcastic bite nips at the backs of his teeth.

 _He’s doing you a favor. Don’t antagonize, for once in your life._ Instead he studies Illya, one arm lounging on the back of the couch, but his fingers drum a rhythm of nerves. Poor acting. Poor form. It revealed too much. Illya says nothing.

He says, “Listen to me. Don’t flinch. First-timers always flinch, but I can’t get my teeth out that fast. You’ll only make a mess.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Illya says, but there’s no teeth on the bite his words carry. He’s gone quiet and receptive, something earnest in the way he holds himself, carefully open. Napoleon expected Illya’s terribly mask, the thing he wore when trying to feel nothing. He said it himself: this was pragmatic. Part of the job. But the man beside him didn’t carry himself like a professional. Not even a professional bad at acting.

“I didn’t mean to imply you are,” his tone approaches apologetic, but there’s question in it, too. A tilt of his head that speaks more of curiosity than the appropriate concern. “Tap twice if you want me to stop.”

“Go too far and I’ll throw you myself.”

Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Napoleon leans in, finding the pulse on Illya’s neck. He stares, scenting the air. It’s salt, and sweat, anticipation. No fear. “Right,” he says, but this was never part of the question. Napoleon knows he can throw him.

The question: whether or not Illya will want him to stop.

Illya hardly reacts to the sudden sting; a catch of breath and nothing more. He’s had worse. They both know he’s had worse. His muscles here are pale, bloodless with tension. It flows at a mere trickle. Napoleon digs in harder, widening the wounds. Illya grunts, hand tightening over Napoleon’s forearm with bruising force, but he says nothing of the pain. He tightens his mouth and takes it.

Napoleon pictures this:

Venom encircling open wounds, crawling quietly inside, beckoning the blood to flow. Muscles relax at Napoleon’s command. He shuts his eyes and swallows, tries to loose himself.

Illya’s grip slackens into a caress. The slow march of venom reaches his nervous system, slows him to a crawl. Breath sighs past his lips in something that might be a word. Napoleon imagines an accusation, but it’s slurred beyond meaning. The body beneath him shudders, caress dropping to the cushion. Only one tap. Next his head falls back, eyes open and seeing but vacant, watching the ceiling with what might pass for casual interest if not for the way his lashes flutter. Napoleon knew the look well. Illya was floating, detached from his body in a way Napoleon envied and sometimes still craved. Addicts don’t cease being addicts. They stop practicing. They recover. But once an addict, it follows you always. Napoleon wants in a way that forces his mouth wider.

It shouldn’t be like this.

Napoleon removes his teeth, lacking grace, but with as much care as he can muster. Tongue ghosts over the edges of Illya’s wounds. He wipes away what he can, and when Napoleon leans away, he does nothing to mask the shaking of his hands. He can’t twist it into some other emotion when he doesn’t know what he’s feeling to start with. He can’t twist the truth when he can’t discern the lies. Acting requires insight, awareness. In this moment he lacks both.

“Thanks for that, Peril,” his voice shakes. It seems pointless to hide it now, so he doesn’t. The brocade square is rough on his lips after the heat of smooth skin, but he cleans his mouth regardless. Hides evidence of the glutton inside him. It’s usually not this difficult. He’s usually not shaking this hard.

He wipes Illya’s neck with even greater care. To him the fabric must be rough to the point of pain, like sandpaper. They were used to pain, the two of them, but Napoleon wished to avoid it where he could. The only reaction is a flicker of eyes: Illya, watching him. It’s all he can do for now, paralyzed in place.

How much does he process? How much is he seeing, really? Napoleon feels as though Illya’s somehow slipped the knife from his teeth and now holds it to his neck. Napoleon drops the handkerchief in Illya’s lap. His eyes slip back shut, tired.

“You’ll be able to move again in an hour or so.”

A short grunt, edged with annoyance. A complaint, so anti-climatic that Napoleon cannot help but laugh.

It’s good to know Illya’s not very far gone. Napoleon picks up his jacket and throws it over his arm, picture of debauched poise missing its pocket square. “Don’t blame me,” he holds up his hands in mock surrender, hammering the guilt into something sardonic and hard. It’s shoddy craftsmanship, no nuance, but it’s probably what Illya expects from him. He won’t look too closely. “Pragmatism, my good comrade.” Napoleon takes the knife back into his teeth, but it grazes his lips in a ways it hadn’t before.

The door shuts quietly behind him.

 

* * *

 

 

“I was seventeen,” Napoleon says, unprovoked, arm resting on the car door. In the darkness he is nothing but a shadow of a man, almost featureless. Statuesque. Napoleon's other hand holds a speaker to his ear, but they’ve heard nothing but static and yawning pet dogs for the past two hours. Four more hours and Gaby would be here to relieve Napoleon’s shift. These are moments spy novels like to leave from their pages. Spying isn’t all explosions, or even half explosions. It’s mostly, no explosions, and a lot of waiting around, listening to silence pass in an unmarked car.

“Solo?”

“You asked about the bruises.”

Months ago. Missions ago, he asked about the bruises, and the welts that didn’t heal with the rest of him. _Months_ ago. Napoleon only did things when he was good and ready.

“You’re hardly seventeen.”

He holds up a finger, “When he propositioned me, I was seventeen, and very, very poor. And skinny. God, I was skinny.”

Illya catches Napoleon’s eye in his reflection on the window, searching for explanation. His lips are carefully casual in a way Illya’s learned not to trust. “Propositioned,” he repeats, and Napoleon’s eyes flick sideways at the word.

“An awful lot of money, and a place to stay. Every street whore’s dream, hm?” He speaks frankly, shoulders at ease but his hand grips the speaker with white knuckles. “For a while, couple months, he was the best thing that ever happened to me. I didn’t have to take other customers anymore,” he laughs through the nose, “I still did, because I’m greedy. You’ve always been right about that, Peril. I am a product of capitalism down to the last thread.”

There’s something in his voice Illya doesn’t like. Resignation.

“Then the shakes hit.”

“Shakes.” It should be a question. Illya watches the pencil in his hand, fingers steady over yellow notepad. His fingers only ever shook with anger. Loss of control. Vampire venom dulls the nervous system. Not meant for prolonged exposure.

Napoleon hums an affirmative.

A cold pit opens in Illya’s stomach, the sort of heaviness that forms when he senses a mission spiraling quickly out of his control. “And the man, the one who propositioned you,” again, not a question.

“Vampire.”

Events falling into a story, actions gaining context.

“Then the bruises.”

Napoleon meets his eyes in the glass pane. They’re shadowed and tired, but at ease. Napoleon’s already accepted this origin of his. Wants Illya to accept it, too. He can’t fathom why. “We wear the scars we’re born with.”

Illya lets this settled in. He’s just been told something valuable, something vulnerable, shown a sliver of something human kept hidden behind suits and charlatan smiles.

“It’s not all bad. Cover stories are easier.”

Illya snorts, “When your cover is a seducer, maybe,” he jokes in kind and lets the moment pass with the static. This information he stores away for later, where days from now he might pick at it like an itching scab.

“I’m always the seducer,” and Napoleon turns to look at him. The kiss is unexpected, quick, too short for Illya to register it as anything other than sweet. “I have a lot of practice.”


End file.
